the bus rank

...smells rank. the back corner serves as a barber shop and strangely enough reeks of urine. you can buy pretty much anything at the rank including tonight's dinner, clothes, shoes, sunglasses, dogs. you can play a little pool, get your hair done, have some ice cream, get your shoes resoled, recharge your phone, and make new friends if you take the time to do so. 

i'll include a few photos from my most recent photo excursion with my friend, Carolynn. Batswana love to have their photo taken. Many ask you to print it for them as though you’ll magically produce a photo printer on site.

She asked to have her photo taken. She is cooking "russians" on a grill of sorts powered by a propane tank. These "russians" a.k.a. hot dogs are a staple bus rank cuisine.

As you will see, there is little variation in the products sold at the rank and there is a tendency to park themselves next to each other, selling the very same things. We'll call it friendly competition.

You can get your shoes repaired as well as buy a used pair, just after you've snacked on a hotdog.

The plethora of trash in the background contributes to the "rank smell." BUT you can get some delicious veggies. In just a few months mangoes will be in season and you can buy them by the truckload at this very location!

She asked that I take her photo. She is selling "airtime" (phone minutes), "disweets" (candies) all the while enjoying her lunch of beetroot, rice, and fried chicken (and probably a spoonful of butternut in there as well).

Again, the grouping of stalls, selling almost identical products...give or take...a roll of toilet paper :)

These guys. The RASSSSTA MON! much to say, much to withhold.

Probably one of my favorite aspects of the bus rank, the scattered pool tables. Sometimes you can wait for over an hour for a bus to depart, hence the need for all these activities and dining facilities. Why not play a game of pool while you wait. I never see women playing so I'm not sure if it's because of disinterest, but I've wanted to play once or twice. Also, they often occupy the width of the sidewalk and you really have to watch out for their poolsticks. 

Just a few of the many food stalls at rank. In the mornings they sell "dipapatha" (baked bread) or "magwinya" (fried bread- a donut from hell...all the fat and no sugar). In the afternoons they sell little trays of fried chicken and french fries. Coca Cola abounds. 

He asked for his photo, taking a break from his lunch. 

Sweet lady cutting up some rape (spinach-like). The bags of mixed veggies with potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers sells for about 10 pula (about $1.25 USD). A bag of chopped rape is P5. 

SHOES.

I'm also including a few other photos from life otherwise...

In Kopong, "dikoko diteng" literally translates to the chickens are around...buy your chicken here!

photos from a farmers' market of sorts a few months back in Moshupa. 

these women are selling dried beans and mophane worms and other goodies

selling beans and...monster pops (succors). they don't look too happy. the smile in photographs hasn't caught on much yet.

This lovely woman sold me some black eyed peas and then asked that I buy her some too?

Dinner party in Gabs. good times.

These next few photos are from an artist living in Kopong, Botswana, discovered by my friend, Celia. She is trying to get him a show in Gaborone. He paints from his bedroom and you can see his palette just next to his wardrobe. I recently bought one of his paintings, a portrait of a women. He didn't mind that I took the next photos, and I was so interested to see all the works that he's done all from his own bedroom. What a dedicated and talented fellow.

He took out a few of his paintings to show us. He paints from photos of traditional baskets and pottery. Many wildlife scenes and images of village life.

This is one of his newer pieces of waterlilies in the delta in northern Botswana.

He stores the canvases above his wardrobe. He buys some prefabricated frames and gessoed canvas, but he also makes many of his own.

I hope you enjoyed a little photographic update of things here. The GLOW Camp is happening (!) next week! I feel like most everything is prepared and organized so hopefully I can participate in the fun without stressing on the details. You know there will be pictures to come. 

Until then, take care. 

What's in a name?

Let me preface this entry with this: I wrote this little blurb as an op/ed piece for the Peace Corps Botswana newsletter. To better contextualize this piece, it's good to know that there is a bit of versatility in the living conditions for PCVs in Botswana. I cannot speak for the rest of the PC countries or even for those in Africa, but rumor has it that Botswana lends to a kind of "Posh Corps" experience. Earlier in my service, I remember the nervousness in finding out whether or not I would have electricity or a pit latrine and discussing the implications of those varying conditions with other Volunteers...little did I know that those were the least of my worries. 

Before joining Peace Corps many of us believed the brochures, expecting mud huts and dinner by moonlight. Those of us invited to Botswana were told we were lucky to be in the ‘posh corps.’ Even from my homestay experience I recognized that many families opt for a satellite dish for their TV before they install running water in the home. I remember thinking why deny yourself when your neighbor enjoys the modern conveniences of running water and electricity, watching soap operas every single night and blasting the radio on Saturday mornings? The question is: does the availability of these amenities make the experience any less challenging or any less of a “Peace Corps experience?”

Some Volunteers live with the beloved “air-con” in a relatively modern apartment or house, but what about those living the ‘old’ Peace Corps experience in a traditional round house and making the trek to the pit latrine at all hours. There are even some Volunteers living without electricity entirely, often in the context of a village with only a few compounds connected to power. Some opted for these living situations and others simply acquiesced. Are they any more of a Volunteer because of their deviation from modern conveniences and willingness to adapt? Even if they live without them day-to-day, they may occasionally enjoy an episode of 30 Rock on their Mac, powered by the juice borrowed from the local clinic earlier that day, all the while eating their rice and tomato sauce dinner by candlelight. Or they may travel to another Volunteer’s site for the weekend to take a nice bath and charge up all electronic devices. I have both electricity and running water with a flush toilet in my house. I have often wished I had neither simply because the wiring is so terrible and the water supply so unreliable that I’d rather learn to live without than have to live with unannounced outages. When water was out for seven days, believe me, the flush toilet was a curse!

Whether you have these amenities or not, you may have the friend who has the latrine and have spent the holiday in a teeny village bordering the bush without electricity, inevitably learning what it is like to live in these varying conditions, adapting to the circumstances or learning to live without. One Volunteer put it to me like this: “When you go visit your Volunteer friends you immediately learn three things about their place: how to flush the toilet, how to get water, and how to bath yourself.” These few words could not be more true. Who knew that there could be so much versatility to your lifestyle within the course of a month? The key to this revelation is the ability to adapt. There is so much variation in the conveniences and difficulties in each village and at each person’s site so whether first-hand, vicariously or temporarily we all experience these conditions.

The reality is that we adapt whether we have these conveniences or not and that has been the common Peace Corps experience through 50 years of service. While the accessibility to things like running water define our daily life in terms of stocking water and washing dishes, it is surprising how quickly those behaviors become mindlessly routine, even normal. One thing that I’ve learned in my service is that your Peace Corps experience becomes less defined by how well you fulfill some 50-year-old stereotype and more about how you find a contentment both in your home and in your community, with the people you work with and the people you socialize with. When you do, all of those seeming amenities fade into the periphery. The truth it may be easier to live without water than it is to find a capable and willing counterpart for a project. It’s may be easier to live without electricity than to get accustomed to the stares on combi rides and the incessant “lekgoa!” resounding from some indiscriminate location.  

While Botswana is an anomaly in its relative wealth to other Peace Corps countries, the notion of being flexible remains, applicable around the globe and across the board. It is this flexibility and learning to make a home in the unfamiliar territory and a friend in the sea of strangers that brings together a common experience for all Volunteers at all levels of development.